


Words to Say

by Kuri



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 06:03:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6143872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuri/pseuds/Kuri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don’t ever say it explicitly out loud. Gabriel doesn’t need to hear it, Sam might have come close to accidentally saying it a few times but he never does, either. </p><p>It’s one of the many unspoken things they share between them.</p><p> </p><p>Gabriel has never told Sam that he loves him, and Sam doesn't tell him either until it's too late. The downsides of a relationship between an angel and a human.</p><p>(hinted Destiel, mostly Sabriel)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words to Say

**Author's Note:**

> ... This wasn't supposed to happen.

“Dean still thinks that we’re going to end up dead before we hit fifty,” Sam says casually, one day, completely out of the blue.

Gabriel _should_ have better control over his vessel’s tendency to animatedly overreact to his natural instincts, but still he feels himself go rigid at Sam’s words.

They’re lying in a messy pile of limbs on Sam’s bed. Gabriel unceremoniously flopped himself down across Sam’s bare stomach the moment he snapped himself into existence in Sam’s room, and Sam’s only tried to half-heartedly push him off once or twice.

“What do _you_ think?” Gabriel says lightly.

Sam snorts. “I’m actually betting on us somehow getting ourselves killed before forty, actually. Fifty’s too generous.”

“Considering your track record, that’s pretty ironic on your part.”

“And what, exactly, would my track record be?”

“Trying not to die. Followed by repeated futile attempts to die, in the name of sacrificing yourself for the greater good.” Gabriel’s finger swipes through the air as he speaks, like he’s drawing invisible patterns in tandem to his words.

Sam jabs Gabriel in the shoulder. “It’s called _acceptance_. I’m not in denial anymore; thought you would have picked up on that ages ago.”

“True. I think I can count on one hand the number of hunters who gracefully died of old age.”

Sam sounds amused at that. “How many hunters have you known?”

“Enough.”

Gabriel flips himself over, sprawling over Sam’s long legs, his chin resting on the curve of Sam’s hip. He looks up at Sam with wide eyes.

Sam finally puts away his laptop, which he’d been precariously balancing over the top of Gabriel’s head. “You’re bored again, aren’t you?”

“Yup. Let’s go get food.”

“But we just – Okay, fine. Where do you want to go?”

“Greece.”

Sam just sighs. “Let me go put on something more appropriate first.”

 

 

 

This is why Gabriel likes him, he thinks. This strange human both strong enough to stand up to the devil himself, yet so tender and kind-hearted, with a soul so pure despite everything he’s seen and done. Sam puts up with Gabriel in that fond, long-suffering way that one can only have developed growing up as Dean Winchester’s younger brother.

But it’s the little things – Sam, smiling tiredly even when Gabriel suddenly turns up in the middle of the night, wordlessly rolling over so Gabriel can climb into bed next to him. Sam, always sending out short prayers whenever Gabriel’s off doing his own things halfway across the world. _Hey Gabriel, we’re going out to check out this haunted train station right now_. _Gabriel, stop trying to give yourself diabetes, it’s not going to happen. Gabriel where are you come back I need you to back me up Dean and Cas are at it again_.

Sam is like this bright spark in the endless grayness of the human world. Precious, a burning flame to be protected always, never to be extinguished.

 

 

 

It’s Sam’s turn to fuck him tonight. They switch around a lot in bed entirely randomly; sometimes Gabriel tops for a week or so, then Sam takes over for the next few days until Gabriel wants to try something new.

Gabriel’s not even sure how they even settled on their current arrangement, but it doesn’t matter, especially not now. Not with Sam cleverly fucking into him with lazy thrusts and rolls of his hips, arms caged around Gabriel’s smaller form like he can hold down an archangel.

“Do you want me to start up the porn star moaning now?” Gabriel says. “I’m really good at that.”

Sam bends down to kiss him, slow and deep, to shut him up. “You’re not a porn star,” he says, against Gabriel’s lips.

“I could be. If I wanted to, that is.”

“If you’re a porn star, what would that make me?”

“The porn star’s civilian boyfriend,” Gabriel says flippantly, then hisses as Sam curls a hand around his cock.

“You talk too much,” Sam says.

“You know what to do.” Gabriel half rises up to pull Sam back down. “Come on, Sammy.”

 

 

 

They don’t ever say it out loud explicitly. Gabriel doesn’t need to hear it, Sam might have come close to accidentally saying it a few times, in the end, but he never does.

It’s one of the many unspoken things they share between them.

 

 

 

“Do you want to come along?”

Gabriel’s perched on the edge of the desk, watching as Sam efficiently packs up a duffel bag with practiced ease. He’s never asked why either of the brothers even bother packing and unpacking, when they’re constantly on the move everywhere.

“Where to?”

“It’s a day’s drive away. Seven people died of heart attacks in the past week.”

“People die of heart attacks all the time.”

Sam gives him a look. “I’m going to rephrase myself: Seven people within the same apartment building died of heart attacks in the past week.”

Gabriel whistles. “I see how that might be a worrying trend. Are they dying one day at a time? One for every day of the week?”

“ _Gabriel_ ,” Sam says, exasperated, then sighs. “No, they’re not. The deaths are spread out randomly, there’s no noticeable pattern so far.”

“Check the piping,” Gabriel says, pretending to sound dramatically defeated. “It’s always the piping.”

Sam zips his bag shut, then turns to look at him again. “So you’re not coming along? And why the piping?”

“Nah. This will be fairly easy, you’ll be okay on your own. And why the piping, you ask?” Gabriel waggles an eyebrow at him. “Because it’s important, see. Put something bad in one section of the pipes, and it travels all around the building and contaminates the rest of the plumbing when someone flushes the toilet. That’s not how it works, but theoretically speaking, you know.”

Sam just sighs. “Okay, we’ll check the pipes. What are you going to do in the meantime?”

Gabriel snaps his fingers and pulls a chocolate-coated strawberry out of thin air. “There’s a chef who’s been especially mean to his line cooks. It’s quite gory, apparently hot oil was involved at some point.”

“Just don’t kill him.”

“Aww, I was just thinking of deep-frying him in bacon grease.”

“ _Gabriel_.”

“Okay, okay.” Gabriel holds up his hands in a placating gesture. “No deep-frying, I promise. Give me a good luck kiss before you go?”

“Remember, no killing.” Sam bends over to kiss him lightly on the lips, quick and chaste, then steals his strawberry.

 

 

 

 _Apparently some idiot teens stole a cursed object from the local museum on a dare,_ Sam says. _They hid it behind a broken down part of their bathroom wall, and it got into the plumbing. We got rid of the thing, but we’re not sure how to completely flush it out of the pipes, so we’re sticking around for a few more days to figure it out. Ugh go away Dean._

Gabriel’s sure that he wasn’t supposed to have overheard that last part. He casts out a tendril of his consciousness, reaching out until he can see a blurred vision of Sam and Dean slumped over on the floor of a dirty bathroom. They’re okay, albeit rather wet.

“ _\- should let your boyfriend top for the next week as a reward_ ,” Dean’s saying.

Gabriel laughs. He pulls himself back, then turns to the pathetic loser cowering at his feet. “And now, where were we?”

 

 

 

Gabriel’s memorised every inch of Sam’s skin; every scar, every dip and curve of his body, even the sensitive spots behind his ears and the back of his knees. He maps them all out with his fingers, marvelling at every crease and line in the warm skin.

“How many years has it been?” he says softly. There’s a new wrinkle here, on the back of Sam’s left hand. It’s tiny, barely perceptible, but Gabriel can see it growing over the years, until it’s one long thin spidery line over his work-hardened knuckles.

“Almost eleven,” Sam says. “That’s over a _decade_. Or did you mean how many years since we stopped trying to kill each other?”

“Details,” Gabriel says. “Besides, I wasn’t even trying that hard.”

“You look exactly the same as you did, eleven years ago,” Sam says. He catches Gabriel’s hand in his own. “Don’t you ever get bored of looking the same?”

“Physical appearances don’t matter to us,” Gabriel says. “On the outside, everyone’s the same lump of human flesh.”

“So what do I look like on the inside?”

The purest, most beautiful soul he’s ever seen. The flame of a candle, slowing burning bright and hot. The warmth of the earth in the summer heat.

An all too ordinary human, rapidly ageing before his very eyes.

“A moose,” Gabriel says.

 

 

 

 

 

“Do you ever think,” Castiel says to him one day, his blue eyes distant and anxious, darting about like he’s not actually looking directly at Gabriel. His hands and sleeves still smeared with Dean’s blood, as if he’s forgotten how to clean himself off, “About getting them to stop?”

“You know they wouldn’t,” Gabriel says evenly.

“They wouldn’t,” Castiel agrees. “But do you think we could try?”

It’s rare that Castiel’s asking him for advice. This shouldn’t be so difficult. Gabriel struggles with himself, but fixes on a blankly bored face as he tugs at Castiel’s hands, and the blood instantly vanishes.

“Sure. And while we’re at it, let’s try talking big bro Lucifer into dancing the kumbaya with Michael, shall we? Easy as pie.”

“You think that it’s pointless to try.”

“Of course I think it’s pointless to try. They were born to do this.”

“But they don’t need to _die_ doing it,” Castiel argues, still wistfully earnest.

“Free will,” Gabriel says. “Too bad for that little clause Dad wrote into the contract. We can’t force them to choose.” 

“I understand,” Castiel says, finally. “I don’t like it, but I understand.”

Castiel disappears in a silent flutter of wings, but Gabriel somehow doubts he’s gone back to Dean.

 

 

 

The years pass. Gabriel still doesn’t say the wordsto Sam, but he supposes they’ve both gone past the point of needing to hear it spoken out loud.

Gabriel drags Sam all around the world; to ancient China, to watch unseen from the sidelines as huge armies clash on the battlefield, to modern day Vegas where Sam tries and fails to stop Gabriel from making rude gestures into the luxor sky beam to see if they would form shadows in the night sky, to a quiet island out in the middle of ocean where they sit by a low-hanging cliff to watch the dolphins in the distance.

There’s so much he wants to show Sam, so little time to do it all.

And if Sam notices his increasingly erratic behaviour, he thankfully doesn’t comment on it.

 

 

 

 

 

Dean goes first – quite fittingly in the middle of a fierce battle against a dark beast older than the angels themselves, a look of stony determination in his eyes right before he flings himself at Sam, shoving him down to the ground, ever resolved to protect his little brother right to the very end. Right before black hellfire erupts around them, filling the stale air with the stench of burning flesh as Dean’s clothes melt into his skin.

It’s also the first time Sam and Gabriel fight in years.

“I _can’t_ bring him back,” Gabriel snarls. The windows around them shatter into a million crystal shards at the power of his voice, and Gabriel doesn’t even know if he’s still using his vessel’s voice, if Sam can even hear him now, “For the last time, I fucking can’t!”

“You’re an _archangel_ ,” Sam screams back, furious. “You’ve done it before so fucking do it again!”

“ _He’s moved on_ ,” Gabriel’s voice rises up into a roar, and the lights flicker out, leaving them in complete darkness. “There’s nothing I can do about it, he’s _already moved on!”_

Sam’s face absolutely crumples. “So this is it, then?”

“Yes,” Gabriel says, brokenly. “I’m sorry, Sam, but there’s nothing we can do now. He’s gone for good this time.”

The broken glass crunches under the heel of Sam’s boots as he stalks forwards, and then suddenly Gabriel finds himself with an armful of sobbing, trembling Sam. Gabriel stands there rigidly, lets Sam bury his face into the crook of his shoulder, tears falling down to wet the collar of Gabriel’s torn, bloody shirt.

 

 

 

Sam, bless that incorrigible, ridiculously unshakeable Winchester spirit – stubbornly goes back to hunting, even after Dean. Gabriel stays by his side now, quietly offering information and just enough of his power that Sam survives long enough to go on the next hunt.

He sees the signs long before they manifest, the way the creases of Sam’s once smoothly unmarked skin slowly deepen, the way he takes slightly longer to get out of bed each morning. It claws at his insides, the dread of seeing Sam’s face every day, the reminder that no matter how much power Gabriel yields – that Sam too, is vulnerably mortal.

“What’s it like?” Sam says, one night.

They’re curled up together in bed, as usual, the way they’ve spent every night the past few years. Sam still lets Gabriel lie down across his stomach, and Gabriel still pokes Sam in the hips when he wants to get his attention. Gabriel splays his hand out over Sam’s ribs, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. The fingers of his vessel look remarkably young and unblemished, over Sam’s dry, lined skin.

“Tastes like chocolate,” Gabriel says promptly, rolling his eyes. “What’s _what_ like?”

“Heaven. What’s it really like as a permanent resident?”

Gabriel shrugs. “Can’t tell you.”

“Will I see you again after I die?”

“Can’t tell you that either. Top secret intelligence, requires ten levels of deadness to access.”

“I’ll like to see you again,” Sam says. “Do you think Cas is with Dean?”

Neither of them have seen or heard from Castiel since Dean died. Gabriel wonders how he’s coping, wonders how Gabriel himself is going to cope. It’s going to be wholly… _different_.

“That’s a trick question, you nearly got me there,” Gabriel says. “Very smart of you.”

“Damn,” Sam says, laughing, but he quickly turns serious again. “Hey, Gabriel? Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah?”

“Why don’t you ever go anywhere anymore? You never used to hang around all the time like this.”

Gabriel flexes his hand. “ _Ouch_ , Sammy. Trying to kick me out of the house now?”

“I don’t want you to be tied down to me,” Sam says softly. “You needn’t stay with me all the time, you know. I can take care of myself.”

Gabriel scoffs. “No you can’t. I had to save you from that vampire last week.”

“That was a fluke.”

“And the ghost, two weeks before that.”

“Mm-hmm.”

They lapse back into silence. Gabriel feels Sam fading away, little by little, his heartbeat slowing down to a steady, relaxed pulse. But just before Sam falls asleep, he stirs and says, groggily, “Gabriel? Can you do me a favour?”

“Mouth or hands?”

Sam laughs softly. “Neither. Take some time off, travel the world like you used to. Go without me. Remember those times you brought me to that island out in the middle of nowhere? We used to watch the dolphins, then make out on the beach until it got so dark I couldn’t see a thing.”

“But-”

“One week, Gabriel. Just take a week off, alone. It’ll be good for you. Just get me some avocados on the way home.”

“No hunting until I come back.”

“No hunting,” Sam promises agreeably. He’s fading away again, drifting off into tired sleep.

Gabriel closes his own eyes, listens to the calming sound of Sam’s blood flowing through his veins like it’s the sweetest sound on earth.

 

 

 

 

 

“I know who you are,” Gabriel says.

The young man shrugs warily. He looks a lot like Castiel’s old vessel; his eyes are a dark brown, but he has the same dark, ruffled hair, the same piercing gaze. It’s mildly unnerving to see him standing at the entrance to the bunker, like a sentinel standing guard.

“Uncle Sam called my mom,” he says. “I’ve been waiting for you. You’re Gabriel, right?”

The boy’s holding an angel sword, which he deliberately shifts from one hand to another. As if he thinks that Gabriel can be so easily cowed by the mere sight of the ancient weapon. Naïve, but there’s potential in him, if he’s stupidly brave enough to think that he can stand up to an archangel.

Gabriel doesn’t know his name, this boy who’s the _grandson_ of Castiel’s favoured vessel, but that’s not important now. “Where’s Sam?”

“Uncle Sam was already dying when he sent you away,” the boy says. “Something supernatural got him, but he hid it from you. He prepared everything himself. I’m not allowed to let you in, but I can show you where he is.”

“I’m not an idiot, I knew about it,” Gabriel says. He never got the stupid avocados after all. “And what makes you think I’m not going to just walk in there myself?”

The boy looks at him hopelessly. He gestures about, then lets his hands fall limply to his sides. “Just… come with me.”

Gabriel follows after him. The boy takes him through a narrow passageway Gabriel’s never been down before, even though he’s been living here with Sam for _years_  - and the realisation is like a shock of ice to his core – he’s never before settled down in any one place for this long, ever.

There’s a panic room up ahead, a small, isolated room in the middle of a cavernous hall. Gabriel can imagine what it would have looked like if it were in use; protective barriers and spells set up all around the surrounding empty space.

Angel wards.

Angel wards, inscribled into every surface in sight. Complicated circles and criss-crossing lines, all in blood, sigils far more complex than any living human should ever know how to draw. It’s clearly Sam’s own work; no one else could have managed such a precise attention to detail.

The boy reappears in front of him, holding out a little scrap of paper. “He said to give you this,” he says nervously.

 

 

 

In the end, it’s Sam who says it first.

 

 

 

_Love you, Gabriel. Don’t want you to see me like this. Take care of yourself until we can meet again._

The wards on the wall have long gone cold, blood congealing dark and dry into the concrete.


End file.
